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Mercury Computer Systems Receives U.S. Government Research & Development Prime Contract for JCREW Technology Demonstration

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via PRNewswire

CHELMSFORD, Mass., March 3 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Mercury Computer
Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: MRCY) announced that its wholly owned subsidiary,
Mercury Federal Systems, Inc., has received a $2.5 million contract award from
U.S. Army Ft. Monmouth's CECOM in New Jersey, for development and
demonstration of a testbed to support the Joint Counter Radio-Controlled
Improvised Explosive Device Electronic Warfare (JCREW) program. The testbed
will be used by the U.S. Government to develop and test advanced open-
architecture technology for counter-IED systems development.

An IED (improvised explosive device), commonly known as a "road-side
bomb," is designed to distract, destroy or incapacitate personnel or vehicles.
Crafted from combustible, toxic, destructive, and often lethal chemicals from
military or commercially sourced explosives, IEDs are capable of propagating a
life-threatening effect beyond shrapnel, concussive blasts, and fire normally
associated with bombs.

Under this contract, Mercury will provide an "open-systems" digital signal
processing (DSP) architecture technology and testbed systems for counter-IED
research and development, as well as systems engineering support services to
the U.S. Government and to contractors that use the testbed facilities. In
addition, Mercury will demonstrate a scalable data acquisition and processing
application within a very dense, size/weight/power (SWaP)-constrained
environment. Mercury will further demonstrate the X-Midas platform-independent
software framework as an application environment, which is designed to reuse
existing applications from other Government and contractor sources for
developing DSP applications.

Mercury also announced a related agreement with ITT Electronic Systems
(NYSE: ITT), a leading supplier of information and electronic warfare (EW)
technologies, systems, and services that enable mission success and
survivability for a broad range of military aircraft. Through collaboration
with ITT's Electronic Warfare Systems business area, the strengths of each
organization shall be leveraged to demonstrate algorithm component portability
for the JCREW testbed architecture, which is an important element of the R&D
objectives of the program.

"It is our intention to collaborate with high-technology companies such as
Mercury, to enable the rapid design and development of affordable electronic
warfare systems for military applications," said Pete Steensma, Director,
Advanced Concepts and Technology at ITT Electronic Systems. "We look forward
to this relationship and the mutual pursuit of follow-on opportunities in the
electronic warfare market."